ANOTHER RANSOMWARE ATTACK

Agriculture group New Cooperative group was hit by a ransomware attack over the weekend, potentially endangering operations of a company key to the agricultural supply chain.

Security researchers shared posts detailing the attack across social media on Monday, and while New Cooperative did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the incident from The Hill, the company confirmed the attack to Bloomberg News.

“New Cooperative recently identified a cybersecurity incident that is impacting some of our company’s devices and systems,” the company told Bloomberg in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, we have proactively taken our systems offline to contain the threat, and we can confirm it has been successfully contained.”

Iowa-based New Cooperative is among the larger U.S. farm cooperatives, and according to Bloomberg received a ransom demand of $5.9 million from cybercriminal group BlackMatter.

In what are thought to be screenshots of a negotiation between a spokesperson for New Cooperative and the hackers tweeted out by security researchers, New Cooperative noted that 40 percent of the nation’s grain production runs through its software, and that the ransomware attack would “break the supply chain very shortly” if the hackers did not relent.